Lemon and apple traybake with crumble and poppy seed topping, a hint of lemon curd and a layer of thinly sliced apples. Cut it into portions and whether you call them slices or squares, they’ll be as delicious.
Name the cake
Technically, these are lemon curd, apple and poppy seed shortbread slices, but what a mouthful that would be? Dishes and recipes have too long names as it is these days, trying to hit as many keywords as possible.
But a more important problematic area is: what to call your bakes? A round cake in a cake tin is easy: it’s a cake. But various cakey objects that are not muffins, cupcakes or biscuits? That’s more tricky.
Over the ocean they are more flexible: ‘cookie’ means any small sweet baked goods. In Britain though we restrict the term to the typical American biscuits, super-sugary, chewy and often studded with chocolate chips. And most of the other baked treats have their own, specific names like macarons, meringues, brownies, teacakes, gingerbreads, crackers or madeleines.
Traybake or sheet pan bake?
The ones causing (me, at least) the most trouble are products baked as a whole, then cut into pieces. Some, again, have their individual names like flapjacks, brownie, blondie or millionaire’s shortbreads. But a generic term for such bakes is different depending whichever way across the Atlantic you look. In America it’s a sheet pan bake cut into bars or squares, while here in the UK we tend to call them traybakes and divide them into slices.
Do you see my quandary? If I call these things ‘squares’, I lose all the British audience, admittedly the closest to my heart. If I call them ‘slices’, no American recipe hunters will find me, admittedly a large populace.
To compound matters, this recipe is adapted from the American writer, Melissa Clark of New York Times Cooking, called ‘bars’ in original. So perhaps by hijacking it and adding my twists, I arguably transgress less grossly than by changing the recipe name.
All the same it seems this whole debate does not lead anywhere and only feeds the readers bitching about bloggers' interminable intros. More importantly, the name does not affect the delicious taste of these excellent bakes. So better stop waffling and start baking, how about that?
How to make the shortcrust pastry?
The clever hack here is to use the same dough for the base and for the crumble topping.
To make it, follow the instructions in the recipe below and first rub the lemon zest into sugar, then beat the butter in and finally mix in the flour and poppy seeds.
Alternatively, follow the ordinary shortcrust making method: stir together all the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, zest and poppy seeds, then rub in soft butter until it forms clumpy crumbs, like wet sand.
Either way stop before the dough comes together and decant about a third of it into a separate bowl, for the topping.
The rest will be the base so pour it into a buttered tin and press down evenly using fingers or the bottom of a cup or tumbler.
No blind baking!
The best thing about these slices is that there is no need to prebake the base which is, frankly, always a chore.
Instead, spread some lemon curd over it and continue with apples. You can of course peel them and slice thinly with a knife beforehand, but it’s much easier to use the peeler for the slicing. Peel the skin and continue peeling the apple flesh, dropping the ‘peelings’ into the tin and onto the base. Best obviously if it ends up covered evenly with the apples but I wouldn’t obsess about it too much – these slices (squares!) are rustic.
Topping and baking
Apples must go with cinnamon so dust them generously before scattering the reserved pastry for crumble topping.
The traybake bakes for about forty minutes, until the apple juices bubble slightly and the crumble turns golden. Leave it to cool down a little in the tray before cutting into squares (slices!).
What apples variety to use?
This is not an apple pie, the apples are there to add a tang, texture and variety so use so called eating apples. Cooking apples like Bramley break down in baking and they would become too soft, mushy and threaten to make the bottom of the bake soggy.
I love Granny Smith, for cooking and eating so that’s what I always use in apple bakes like this, but Gala or Braeburn will serve well too.
More traybake recipes
Raspberry and almond slice, a gorgeous buttery traybake with flaked almond, sugar and butter topping: it’s easier to make and tastier than Bakewell!
Blueberry buckle traybake recipe with buttermilk in the cake mix and quinoa flour crumble topping. A buckle cake is a butter cake with soft fruit and streusel topping. This blueberry buckle gets a tangy flavour from quinoa in the crumble.
Fudgy white chocolate banana blondie recipe. This white chocolate blondie is made with mashed bananas and Brazil nut toffee chunks. Easy blondie recipe - the only slightly difficult part is making the toffee.
More apple cake recipes
Apple cake with spiced, cooked Granny Smith chunks sunk into a cinnamony soured cream sponge and finished with a crisp brown sugar and oat crumble. No mixer needed, the cake is reliably moist and perfect warm with clotted cream or ice cream.
Rustic apple galette with shortcrust pastry base and sliced raw apple filling. No blind baking, no precooking apples – and no soggy bottom!
Perfect apple pie recipe, with sweetened shortcrust pastry and tart fresh apple filling. This is the best apple pie recipe by far; totally worth it to make pastry from scratch. My apple pie, a cross between American and English pie versions, with apple and raisin filling and easy but impressive pastry top.